The Cross

Someone told me of an encounter at a department store jewelry counter. The customer said she was interested in buying a cross, to which the sales clerk replied: "Do you want a plain one, or one with the little man on it?"

To say the least it has become fashionable to wear crosses, not necessarily as a sign of faith, but as a trendy accessory. You see crosses everywhere: necklaces, earrings, and tattoos.  I think the danger is to minimize the true significance of the cross by turning it into a trinket, some kind of a good luck charm or body art. 

We are fast approaching Holy Week, and the events of that week are about ready to unfold again.  During this coming week we will need to comprehend that the cross is more than a fashion statement or an ornament.  Perhaps that is why so few people, compared to Easter Sunday, are in worship on Good Friday.  Perhaps few of us are really are willing to risk comprehending just what happened and the events leading up to it.

A hot topic these days is the death penalty and related issues.  The death penalty has been around for ages, and the Roman Empire in the time of Jesus took it mighty seriously. There wasn't much debate about lethal injection or other humane methods of putting one to death. The Romans wanted executions to be excruciatingly painful, as public as possible and lingering - thus, the Roman practice of death by crucifixion.

We naturally turn away from the horror of the cross. I knew before I went to The Passion movie that it was going to be graphic, bloody, intense and difficult.  I knew that the special effects of the movie would be very authentic, and a part of me did not want to go; did not want to see it unfold before my very eyes. A part of me was afraid to go, because down deep I knew that perhaps it might change me in some unknown deep and profound way - and I did not know exactly how.   Of course, we want to take encouragement from the fact that Christ died for us, but perhaps we can skip over and distance ourselves from the messy, gory, ghastly details. But if we do something very significant is lost.   

I wrote this summary of Jesus' ordeal taken from Matthew and John.

During the trial before Caiaphas, the priests "spit in his face and struck him with their fists." Then, "they bound him" and sent him to Pilate, who had him flogged; the usual procedure was to tie the criminal's hands to a pillar, strip their upper body and deliver up to 40 blows with a three-pronged whip embedded with glass and metal.   Then "the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head," after which "they took (a) staff and struck him on the head, again and again." Weakened from the beatings he had received, Jesus was unable to carry his cross the whole distance to Calvary, as was customary, so an onlooker named Simon of Cyrene was pressed into duty by the soldiers. Christ was then affixed to the cross by having spike like nails driven through his wrists and into the wood. In crucifixions, death came by suffocation as the weight of the victim made breathing progressively more difficult as they slowly lost strength and suffered excruciating pain.

Clearly, the cruelty and viciousness of the cross is increasingly lost upon today's society. Perhaps if the movie did anything at all, it at least put us back in touch in a very real way that which lies at the center of our faith.  As Christians, we must never lose sight of the crucifixion. It's a powerful reminder that the grace that we stand in did not come cheap. God's love wasn't merely sentimentalism, lip-service or sugar-coated.  Jesus Christ paid a huge price. All it costs us is to surrender our inflated pride and self-will. Sometimes it seems to us that this is too great a price, which only indicates how far removed we are from the details of Christ's suffering.

The extraordinary power of the cross is that no matter where we've been or how far we've wandered, we can stand in God's presence - just as we are. The cross is a holy bridge between a broken and sinful people and a Holy God who loves with a truly holy love.

Take some time this coming Holy Week to reflect and pray about this incredible divine love that was expressed for you in the cross of Jesus Christ.  Don't insulate yourself from it, but even as graphic as it is,  let the love of Jesus touch you, get to you, change you!